5 weeks since pickup, and I've been itching to get into this. Finally happened. Since I picked it up, I spent almost a month overseas, came back for a few days, and off to build school. Got some stuff prepped this week and my dad stopped up today and the project officially kicked off.

Impatient me, I had the body off the first week it was home. It can be done solo with a 2 post lift, but certainly 2 people is a lot less sketchy. We put the body back on. There was potentially a few spots that we were told to look for at the build school, and 2 spots will need trimmed. Rear AL that runs parallel to frame on driver's side, as well as body against the rear/seatback area was super close to the panel. Marked those, and body came back off and onto the buck with the doors/etc inside the buck.

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I wanted to finish some of the SS pieces and I'd rather learn something that doesn't need to be 100% perfect vs just farming it out. Bought an Eastwood dual voltage powder coating gun and a convection oven (1 broken burner) off marketplace for $50 yesterday. I'm learning. Not ready for prime time, but for the e-brake assembly, it's good.

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Car wise, made some decent progress,

1) Marked all AL panels on the car with a letter and grabbed a photo for later. There are diagrams, but this will help.
2) Made frame outlines on the AL panels.
3) Install power steering rack , upper & lower control arms, front shocks/springs.
4) stuck on the optional / non-FF swaybar. Calling that shop tomorrow. Wrong hardware & wrong swaybar mount. I assume it's for a Mark4 chassis not Mark5.
5) Not totally stuck moving forward, so I've got stuff to do.

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Pre-work being done - disassembled one front caliper, painting it. The main piece went great, I flubbed the early coats for the bracket. I'll sandblast that tomorrow and do that one over. Then disassemble the other 3 calipers and do the same. I assume I can't get the rears fully apart (cable e-brake), so that may just get some masking. More powder coating.

Still have backordered/late parts - wiring harness, roll hoop (may order 2nd one, I think I'll like that even if it's not true to the original), rear IRS knuckles/arms. IRS stuff should be here Saturday which is good.

Next up - front spindles. Muscling the IRS center section into place is going to be fun. Ford Super 8.8 is 105 lbs, I think. I can always keep myself busy with pedal assembly, fuel tank prep, e-brake handle build, etc.

Unplanned hardware store trip counter: 1.